


The Ding Dong War

by MightyMousy



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: F/M, Humor, Jessyl
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-23
Updated: 2015-06-23
Packaged: 2018-04-05 18:46:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4190937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MightyMousy/pseuds/MightyMousy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jessie and Daryl meet up in a grocery store late one night and go to war over the last box of Ding Dongs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Ding Dong War

**Author's Note:**

> This is just fluff and fun. No kissies, no smut, just a couple of characters behaving ridiculously.

Jessie Anderson stood in the center of the snacks isle at the grocery store, staring at the last box of Hostess Ding Dongs. They'd been her favorite since childhood, a comfort food that nothing else had ever been able to match, and she realized that her luck had finally turned for the better. There was only one box left and chances were the shelf wouldn't be restocked until the morning. The store closed at midnight and it was nearing that time now.

This was what her life had come to since her divorce from Pete, going out at night, looking for comfort food because her kids were at their dad's. She didn't want them over there with him, didn't think him a fit father, didn't trust him not to bring any number of strange women around her sons, try to turn them against her, or worse, hitting them since she was no longer there to act as his punching bag.

She reached for the last box of Ding Dongs. She'd take the box back to her new apartment and eat the whole thing in one sitting before going into a sugar coma. She'd cry while she ate. She'd hate herself for being a pig and eating so much sugar in one night but she'd also feel better. She held the box in her hand and remembered better times when she was younger, when her future was brighter, before she made the mistake of marrying a med student who thought he could play God with her life the way he did with the lives of the people on his operating table.

Suddenly the box was gone, pulled from her hand, and she looked around and saw a man with piercing blue eyes and wild chin whiskers looking at the box as he walked past her cart.

"Hey! Give that back!"

He turned to look at her, let his eyes roam over her once, before coming back to her face. "I need 'em."

"So do I."

"I'm hungry," he elaborated, as though that was all the explanation he needed for yanking the box of cakes from her hand and walking away from her as though he had every right to take what he wanted from other people.

"I'm hungry too. That's why I came here for those."

He just shrugged and started toward the front of the store where the checkout lanes were. She was about to let him go. She was about to let him push her over, like he must have figured she would when he stood there and sized her up, when she thought about Pete. He'd always pushed her over. She'd let him until the very end, till the beatings became too much, till sex was nothing more than rape, till she saw him shove her son, Sam, to the floor when he tried to protect her and she realized she'd been using her kids as a shield and he'd been using them as an excuse not to really go to town on her with his fists.

Till one night he did.

Well, damn it, this was it, this was the final straw. She wasn't any man's pushover. Not anymore.

"Hey!" she shouted, so loudly, so angrily, he had to stop and look back at her.

Jessie didn't know what possessed her to do it, but she gripped the handle of her shopping cart and charged, a scream of rage ripping from her throat.

"No more!" she shouted.

"Jesus Christ, lady!" the man shouted, his eyes widening in disbelief as she came barreling down at him. He broke from his shock at the last second and darted around the isle.

Jessie was spitting mad now. She took the curve wide, knocked over a book stand full of paperbacks, and kept going, kept chasing the man who'd taken the one simple little thing she'd wanted for herself. Her life was in the shitter already. She wasn't going to just let some redneck with stringy hair and clothes that smelled of cigarettes and whiskey take her fucking Ding Dongs.

"Give 'em back! Give 'em back, right now!"

"What the hell is going on here?"

The manager on duty reached out and grabbed the cart just as her quarry dodged around another display, this one of miscellaneous items that Jessie's cart sent crashing to the ground.

"He took my Ding Dong's! He took them right out of my hand!"

"You're wrecking my store over some Ding Dongs?"

"This bitch is outta her mind!" the man shouted.

"Out!" the manager shouted. He gripped the cart to keep Jessie from ramming it at the stranger. "Both of you. Get out and don't come back! Consider yourselves banned from this store and if you don't leave right this second I'm calling the cops!"

The man looked Jessie in the eye, dropped the box of Ding Dongs on the floor, and stomped on them. She felt her jaw drop with indignation. Then she watched as he took a five dollar bill from his pocket and shoved it at the manger before walking out.

"Out!" the manger shouted, pointing at the direction of the exit.

"Those Ding Dongs--"

"Now!"

She let out a scream of frustration and then stomped out. She saw the man look back, his eyes angry, but he picked up his pace, unsure if she'd still try to attack or not, before hopping on a motorcycle and speeding noisily off into the night.

Jessie slammed the door of her car and caught her reflection in the mirror. Her face was flushed and her eyes were bright and red and she realized she looked like a mad woman.

All over some Ding Dongs.

No, it wasn't the cake, it was the man, it was her, it was her fucked up life.

Well, she may have been banned from this store but she wasn't banned from others. She was gonna get her fucking Ding Dongs.

 

 

 

The longer Jessie cruised the neighborhood, going from one store to the next without any luck, the more she cooled down, but she was no less determined. She wasn't going home without her snack. She'd search all night if she had to.

Finally she found a convenience store ten miles from her apartment. She walked in and looked at the shelves, expecting to come up empty handed again, but there they were, Ding Dongs. There was only two in a package so she grabbed three of them and turned to go to the counter when she nearly ran face first into a muscled chest.

It was _him_.

" _You!_ " she shouted.

He held up his hands. "Back off, lady. I'm just here for some snacks."

He had a twelve pack of beer in one hand and grabbed two packages of Ding Dongs from the shelf before going to the counter. She hurried around him and insinuated herself between him and the counter, shoving her Ding Dongs on the counter with his satisfyingly annoyed sigh loud behind her.

"That's $5.88. Will that be all?"

"Yes," she said, and dug in her purse for her wallet.

Which wasn't there.

"No…no, no, no!"

"Is there a problem?"

"I left my wallet at home!"

"I'll get it," the man behind her said.

She wanted to turn around and cuss him out, tell him to go to hell, but at the same time she wanted the Ding Dongs. God knows she'd earned them and he certainly owed her.

She moved aside and let the cashier ring up their purchases. As soon as it was paid for she scooped up her snack and started for the door. Outside it was cool and windy, a welcome change from the scorching hot day of a Virginia summer. She was going to get into her car, go home, eat and then go to sleep, but she came up short.

Now that her anger had cooled, and the man had done right by her by buying her the damned things when he didn't have to, she felt she owed him a thank you. When he came outside she stepped up to him.

"Um…thanks."

He looked at her, clutching her purse and her Ding Dongs to her chest, then looked into her eyes, and in that moment the absurdity of everything that had happened that night came rushing in on them and they burst out laughing.

He looked at her, clutching her purse and her Ding Dongs to her chest, then looked into her eyes, and in that moment the absurdity of everything that had happened that night came rushing in on them and she burst out laughing.  
  
So they stood there, at forty-five minutes past midnight, in the early hours of a windy Saturday morning, with him smiling in a bemused way and her laughing, and laughing, and laughing, even though the situation wasn’t that funny. Finally, when she sobered up, she offered her hand.

"Jessie Anderson."

"Daryl Dixon," he said, shaking her hand.

"Georgia plates," she said, looking at the bike.

"Yeah, I'm visiting my uncle. He's… Well, enjoy your Ding Dongs."

"You too."

He climbed on his bike and she started her car. Soon enough she was on the way home, noticing he kept making all the turns she needed to get home. He probably thought she was trailing him. She noticed the way the angel wing vest he wore seemed to glow in the dark until he pulled into the parking lot of her apartment complex.

"You following me?" he asked, getting off his bike.

"No, I live here."

"So does my uncle," he said.

She locked up the car and realized Daryl's uncle lived only four doors down from her.

"Hey…would you like to come out back and eat these?"

He frowned at her. "You don't even know me. I could be a killer, or a rapist."

"You're not. I know violent men and you aren't one. Not that way, at least."

She spoke with such certainty that he just nodded and pulled the keys to his uncle's place out of his pocket.

"See you in a few."

"It's a date," Jessie said, and then headed inside to get a glass of milk before she met up with Daryl Dixon on her patio to eat Ding Dongs and drink milk, and beer, and, if she was lucky, make a new friend.


End file.
